Pulp cavity
Definition
The hollow channel inside a tusk or tooth that in life contains blood vessels and nerves. In elephant tusks the pulp cavity extends roughly one-third of the tusk length from the base; in narwhal tusks it runs the full length as a wide spiral channel.
Related terms
- Dentinal tubules
- Microscopic channels running radially through dentine from the pulp cavity to the outer surface. They house odontoblast cell processes that can carry...
- Mammoth ivory legality gap
- Because Mammuthus primigenius is extinct and therefore not within CITES scope, its ivory is not internationally regulated. This legal gap is exploited...
- Rhinoceros horn keratin tubules
- Tightly packed melanin-pigmented keratin fibres, 50-80 micrometres in diameter, visible in a rhino horn cross-section under SEM. Distinguished from the keratinous sheath...
- Schreger angle
- The acute angle formed at the intersection of two sets of dentinal tubule lines visible in the cross-section of a tusk. Values...
- Schreger lines
- Crossing arc patterns in elephant and mammoth tusk cross-sections formed by the angles at which dentinal tubule bundles intersect. The acute angle...
Explained in
- Ivory, Horn, and Tusk ExaminationThe hollow channel inside a tusk or tooth that in life contains blood vessels and nerves. In elephant tusks the pulp cavity extends roughly one-third of the tu...